Description
Join the Galactic Secret Service (GSS) and supervise a transfer of Eagle (The President) from one vessel to another. Mission Two of an incomplete campaign.

Storyline:
Protect the UFP Intrepid as it meets the Melbourne to "transfer the Eagle." Delta will give the all clear, then the Intrepid will arrive in the system. <p> Sounds simple, right? Call it boring instead. Only one wing will arrive and threaten that you will "Know the power of the Interstellar Alliance Corp." Then Alpha travels to intercept and slowly kill them. Game over in under three minutes, maximum. Of course, you'll never see a transfer of the "Eagle" or find out what the "IAC" is, since the debriefing just thanks you for protecting the Eagle and declares that Command will look into the matter. Excuse me, did I miss something? The description on Xanadu's should be incorporated into the mission briefing.

Balance:
No ship or weapon selection is permitted, which means you'll be stuck with a GTF Valkyrie armed with ML-16s, Prometheuses, and MX-50s. It might make more sense if the high-tech Prometheus was replaced with an Avenger, because then it could be justified as an early mission with low-tech. Using this weapon selection against shields, you will have plenty of shooting practice. <p> Your reinforcements arrive too far distant (10,000 meters) to be of any help, but will almost guarantee that the mission ends in under three minutes if you're having problems making the kill. But act quickly, there are only four to go around.

Design:
The ships begin 14,000 distant, but the GTD Melbourne will quickly close the gap as it arrives from subspace. It will arrive nearly on top of the "meeting point." However, the Intrepid will have over six minutes to arrive. In the meantime, the GTD Melbourne will spin around in cirles at the meeting point as it attempts to circle the "waypoints" ... since there are only one. This absolutely laughable capital ship flailing could have been avoided by using the "waypoints-once" AI order. <p> The "most important" thing in this mission is to "protect the Eagle" so it doesn't make any sense to have this as a secondary objective. <p> There are events and directives in this mission, but the author misunderstood the purpose of "is-previous-event-true" and chained events. The sexp "is-previous-event-true" is used to link events between missions in a campaign, and chained events are used to prevent an event from being evaluated until the prior event has been completed. The events work fine in the mission, so that isn't a problem. A few of the inflight messages tend to overlap, however, due to the delay settings. <p> Four ships at General AI just aren't enough challenge for a human being even with these pitiful weapons. If Alpha has any problems, their wingman and another wing will clean up if things take too long. <p> It seems strange that the mission would be over in only a few minutes when the transfer of the "Eagle" (whatever that is) isn't complete. Not that I'm asking to wait around for six minutes before hearing "return to base."

Gameplay:
More fun than watching the grass grow, but not much. Fighting with ML-16s, Prometheus cannons and MX-50s is like slow torture and cats playing with mice before eating them. It might be good for target practice, but after awhile you'll ask when the fun starts. Absolutely not replayable, even if you wanted.

Other Thoughts: